“The tokens are out there, getting attention by the white reading public, but most black writers are writing for black readers and getting very little attention from mainstream outlets. Segregation is alive and well when it comes to what we read. Can you name five contemporary black writers? Or Latino/a writers? Or Asian writers? Can you do it if you omit writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Junot Diaz, Ha Jin, the writers who have achieved enough success to be the go to writers of color?”
Roxane Gay from HTMLGiant on the lack of diversity in the Best American Short Stories 2010.
I heard about Roxane’s post via Vida’s Facebook page and it made me take a good look at my bookshelves. I can name five contemporary black writers, but I couldn’t do the same for Latino or Asian writers, and that’s a shame. I feel so uncultured and like my POC card should be taken away. I’m going to talk to friends and search online to find these writers; I know they’re out there.
But I don’t know what the large scale solution is. Like most writers, I read a lot. I’m reading three books right now, all by white authors. My bookshelves are pretty diverse, but the majority of the books are written by white authors. These are books that were recommended or were on bestseller lists, books that have emotionally resonated with me, even when I don’t necessarily identify with the characters. I identify with good writing and good stories.
Sometimes when I see best-of lists or go to bookstores, it reads like this to me: stories about white people = universal; stories about people of color (give or take the most successful authors of color) = for people of color. Literature should be universal, even the craziest, most zany thing you can fathom. Even stories by people who are “other;” it’s all about the human experience.
Maybe we need more websites like this: White Readers Meet Black Authors or Readers Please Meet These Writers of Color (just made that one up). Maybe we all need to take a look at our bookshelves and agree that we’ll all add writers who are not like us, whether that be because of race, gender, or sexual orientation. I wish none of this stuff mattered, but maybe the more we talk about it, the less it will.
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I wonder though… I look at my “bookshelf” (don’t own one, so really, I look at the books scattered on the floor) and can’t name either ethnicity of author. Mainly because when I choose books, I never usually know what the author looks like. This changes when I make it a purpose to find african-american or latino or asian or _______ (insert under-represented ethnicity here) authors. This is good and bad, right? Being able to see the work for itself, no visual labels, but then having to make an effort to search out specific ethnicities because the high profile media market is limited.
But the question becomes, who are the token writers of color… and why? If I name an author, is it because they were navigated in front of me so that my complaints of under-representation are therefore unfounded? What if I don’t really rely on the media that way and I just like their writing? Does it come down to style of writing — MFA vs NYC, like that excerpted article in Slate, from n+1 (http://www.slate.com/id/2275733/)?
Those tokens are of a specific, um, “school” or “style” of writing and are pushed to the forefront, as they are at once exemplary of that school/style and also a minority figure and presented as such? So how do we, writers of color, stop ourselves from naturally becoming tokens in this type of system? This feels like “rap artist syndrome” a little… when an independent or underground artist signs to a major label, they’re all of a sudden considered tokens.
How about books by Native Americans, Micronesians or Australian Aborigines? I’m not mocking, I’m serious. It’s relatively easy to find books by people who represent relatively large demographics, far harder to find books by people whose stories almost never so much as reach pop culture, let alone mainstream literature.
I’m a middle-class white woman whose best college teacher at Washington State University was an African-American nun/poet. Sherman Alexie (Spokane & Coeur d’Alene tribes) went to WSU as did many other fine writers. Growing up in an area with reservations nearby is perhaps what sensitized me to the constant omission of Native Americans from most lists like this; it was a natural evolution to look for other “missing people.”
The hardest thing to see is the thing that isn’t there.
For a free source of a wide range of literature check out manybooks.net. I haven’t tried it yet but they have >29,000 titles, many by less well-known authors.
@BarbChamberlain
I’ve been looking at my bookshelves too, Latoya and I have some work to do.
Barb, the thing is, we’re not talking about some hidden tribe in the Amazon jungle and saying gosh, where are those writers. There are a plethora of Latino/a, Black and Asian writers. These are significant minorities. These are writers who are there, sort of hiding in plain sight because people choose not to see them.
Thank you for sharing this, LaToya, and what a brilliant post, Roxane! I’m also stumped as to how to address this, but I agree that talking about it is the first step. The problem with othering, as you pointed out, is that it makes certain writers seem like the norm while others are not, and readers don’t think twice about it. Look at Barb’s view, which is not uncommon — that minority writers are unread because they’re not out there. I’d love to somehow avoid tokening, as Michael pointed out, and rather than encourage people to add a black author to their bookshelves and call it diversity, begin a conversation where people learn to expand their concept of what’s included in their reality to include stories and perspectives they’ve never considered before.
What this analysis / frustration leaves out is demographics: our country is trending, without any imput from the publishing industry, towards a panethnic culture, exemplified by “The Fast & the Furious.” For youngsters – kids in elementary school right now – race will be viewed differently than the struggle we’re seeing played out right now (<<< I suspect Sarah Palin, the Tea Party "movement," backed by the Koch brothers, old energy oligarchs, are really the dinosaur death roar of dominant culture.)
Solution wise, I'm doing it: representing by writing a post here, about my forthcoming novel – "hidden." There. You know about it. Are you going to buy it?
I believe other solution is choice. If you're a reader, seeking out those writers. If you're a writer, then writing the world as you see – or, want to – see it. And I think the two intersect: "hidden" is populated with characters who cut across the spectrum of race, yes, but also, class, gender, and sexuality. But the story I set out to tell also embraces the grand emotions: Love. Hope. Fear.
The's another solution that benefits us all & that is emergent technology. We're still in that inbetween time – print/e-books, reviewers/bloggers, language/image – but they're merging, and, I believe, offer more opportunity to put yourself out there (or, be found.) Last night, I read Robert Greene's blog, and his take on Napolean/Marie Antoinette and the successive financial bubbles, and how these historical shifts reflect one another. It's well worth seeking out.
I believe this issue is bigger than identity politics, in fact, identity politics and finding characters who reflect you, whoever you are, or conceive of yourself, are both negated by "alternative" publishing & search engines. They're there: are you looking?
@Micheal: I like the comparison you made with the rap artist syndrome. I’m happy that the writers some might consider to be “tokens” are enjoying success and, quite possibly, offering up the first introduction of writing by authors of color to some segments of white audiences. I have had this discussion before–and like you mentioned, these type of authors are mentioned as a way to say, “But you see, [insert race] are being published!” To me that’s like saying we’re living in a post-racial America just because we have a brown man in the White House. I don’t consider these authors tokens–but I do think there’s room, that they can’t be the ones that we call on all the time. And then I think I put higher expectations on authors of color to talk about race, to talk about other writers of color to get the buzz going. But it’s not really their obligation, right?
@Barb: I hear you. Perhaps the more that this issue is discussed, the more that other underrepresented populations will be represented and showcased more on best of lists.
@Roxane: Thanks for writing that post. I spent a good hour reading all of the comments. It’s amazing to me to see the posts from people who “don’t see what you’re talking about.” I just had a similar conversation about POC representation in film and feel like sometimes people say things like this because they come from a place of privilege.
@Maisha: One reason I suggested adding some POC authors to bookshelves (a really small step) is because I was thinking about some of the books I read this past year, and realized I read three novels and one nonfiction book with black and Latino characters in them–and they were all written by white people. I thought two of the books were amazing–the other two, not so much. All of these books enjoyed quite a bit of success, numerous articles in the press. And I’m not saying that white people shouldn’t write characters outside of their race–but for those two books I thought were bad–there were GOOD books by black authors waiting for all of those white readers just sitting on the shelves in the AA section, untouched.
I don’t know. I’m kind of resigned and confused about this all. I know that I can do something about my bookshelves–but that’s not going to change the situation.
There are too many people trying to keep “literature” for the “white people.” It is insidious. It is not good for the health of my nation. I don’t read short stories, but I’m currently reading “The Savage Detectives” by Roberto Bolano (great), and I study constantly for my book, “Seasoned to the Country: Slaves in the House of Franklin”. My research books seem to be divided between white and black writers, but sometimes it’s hard to determine. Larry Eugene Rivers “Slavery in Florida”? A great book, but I don’t know what his background is.
I agree that the small step of adding to our bookshelves would help. I can also look at my own bookshelves, and while I can call them diverse, there’s certainly a majority of white authors, and like you if I were to base a new book purchase off of a recommendation, or what seems to be popular, I’d likely pick up one by a white author.
I took the review last night. Titles include:
The Girl From the Coast, Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Indonesia)
Blu’s Hanging, Lois Ann Yamanaka (Moloka’i, HI)
The Hundred Secret Senses, Amy Tan
Whoreson, Donald Goines
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Happy Reading!
Sometimes when I see best-of lists or go to bookstores, it reads like this to me: stories about white people = universal; stories about people of color (give or take the most successful authors of color) = for people of color. Literature should be universal, even the craziest, most zany thing you can fathom. Even stories by people who are “other;†it’s all about the human experience.
That paragraph stuck out the most for me. I grapple with the meaning and objective of universal. I like the way you put it, LaToya. It’s about the human experience. We’ve not all had the same exact experience, but as humans we’ve loved, lost, fallen, succeeded, made mistakes and learned. And good storytelling, whether in prose or poem, is good storytelling. I don’t have to have the same experience as a character to have empathy and take their journey with them through a poem or story.
I worked in a number of bookstores while going to college and I used to wonder why we didn’t put the books that were in the African-American, Latin-American, Native-American, Gay & Lesbian literature sections within the larger fiction section as well. I’m not saying do away with those sections because they are needed and valuable, but take some of those copies and put them with the rest of the Fiction/Literature section. Let those books be in both places and not kept seperate.
Thanks for writing this LaToya!
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